Course information

Entry requirements

UCAS code

Entry requirements

Length

Department

Course overview

Develop your digital production skills, and combine them with key anthropological concepts. The BA Anthropology & Visual Practice programme helps develop your understanding of contemporary cultural issues, as well as your practical skills in both research methods and visual practice.

Why study BA Anthropology & Visual Practice at Goldsmiths?

This programme approaches anthropology from a fresh angle that differs from the 'traditional anthropology' taught at other institutions.

You’ll receive hands-on training in a range of digital production skills, such as editing, videography, and photography. These new skills will complement your theoretical study, and prepare you for vocational opportunities when you graduate.

You’ll have the opportunity to investigate anthropology in relation to politics, religion, knowledge, philosophy and psychology – and you’ll learn to apply an interdisciplinary perspective to your work.

Examine anthropology from a contemporary perspective – what you learn in the classroom will be relevant in a variety of public domains, in Britain, and around the world.

You'll explore links between theoretical issues and ethnographic studies, enabling you to think critically about your own culture and society, and to apply knowledge learned in lectures to your everyday life.

Our graduates have gone on to work for the UN, World Bank, NGOs, law companies, media companies and corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultancies, while others have gone on to pursue academic careers.

Contact the department

What you'll study

Overview

In the first two years, you'll concentrate on basic anthropological concepts – such as kinship, politics, economics and religion, as well as world systems and development – and on methods of studying and analysing these. You will also study ethnography and at least one region of the world in depth.

There's a substantial practical component to this degree, constituting a sixth of the course load in all three years. This includes training in:

Photography

Videography

Editing

Specialist software

In your final year you can specialise by choosing from a selection of option topics, and will produce a documentary film and dissertation based on individual study.

Ethnography of a Selected Region

You will study either Ethnography of a Selected Region I: Africa or Ethnograqphy of a Selected Region 2: South Asia, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Ethnography of a Selected Region 1: Africa

Module Convenor: Dr Dominique Santos

Africa has been a key space, both geographically and imaginatively, in the development of the discipline of anthropology. This module is an introduction to anthropological studies on societies and cultures in Africa and the African diaspora. Ethnographic case studies are used to address some of the major themes that have characterised studies of Africa and debates about African identity, including sexuality, gender, colonialism, music, art, magic & sorcery, religion, power and the diaspora. Throughout the module, emphasis is placed on how the idea of Africa is mobilised in different ways for a variety of ideological purposes. In this way, students will be able to make links with wider anthropological debates about the construction of society, changes in ethnographic research and the relationship between anthropology and its subjects. On completion of the module, students will have gained knowledge of key debates in African anthropology and be able to reflect critically on the history of ethnographic engagement with Africa. At the same time, they will have developed an understanding of the diversity and contingencies of everyday life in contemporary Africa.

Ethnography of a Selected Region 2: South Asia

Module Convenor: Dr Martin Webb

This an ethnography led module that introduces students to the anthropology, sociology, history and politics of India. The module begins with an introduction to significant historical events and an overview of the emergence of the post-colonial nation. We move on to consider the anthropological construction of India and then follow key themes of inequality, hierarchy, development and the nation across a series of topics which introduce ethnographies exploring: the state, youth, citizenship, love and friendship, urban lives, public culture and the idea of a global India. While the module focuses on India, where ethnographic threads or literatures connect to scholarship from across south Asia students will be guided and encouraged to follow them.

Anthropological Methods

15 credits

This module explores aspects of anthropological methods. You study the following areas: data collection techniques and implications of type and quality of data; participant observation: techniques involved, its evolution and change; analytical approaches to primary data, re-analyses of secondary sources; the philosophy of science; value free social science, interaction between observer and observed, perception and ‘fact’.

Ethnographic Film

15 credits

This module aims to encourage a critical appreciation of ethnographic film, introducing some of the growing literature on visual anthropology, and raising general issues of representation in anthropology as a whole.

Anthropological Ideas

15 credits

This module explores the intellectual history of Anthropology, examining key ideas and introducing thinkers that have had significant impact on the discipline. It will focus on a particular sub-field and will explore in depth the ways that different theoretical and methodological approaches are developed in one specific area of research and writing.

Introduction to Visual Practice

30 credits

This module will introduce you to key areas in the history and practice of image use in Anthropological research and publication. You will also have hands on training on a number of professional software packages, as well as high level visual and audio production equipment (cameras, recorders, microphones).

30 credits

Year 2 (credit level 5)

Politics, Economics and Social Change

30 credits

Politics, Economics and Social Change introduces you to the core concepts and theories relating to economic and political organisations and the problem of accounting for change, both empirically and theoretically.

To familiarise you with a number of empirical contexts in order that you may be able to conceptualise the complex socio-economic processes that are affecting the peripheral areas that have long been the concern of anthropologists.

To explore a number of contemporary problems relating to such issues as the apparent contradiction between local or national autonomy and globalisation that do not fit easily into definitions of the "economic" or "political".

Thinking Anthropologically

15 credits

This module is concerned with key ways of thinking that have shaped and continue to shape the discipline of social anthropology. As such, the module is intended to augment what you have learned in the first year and to help consolidate your sense of how important concepts in social anthropology fit together.

The focus of the module is how the discipline’s main 20th century schools of thought have developed, how they relate to one another and what they have contributed to our understandings of the world.

Our concern is with the different ways in which anthropologists have conceived of ‘culture’ and ‘society’ in their efforts to account for the myriad of ways in which humans live.

We shall explore how these approaches to anthropology compete with, and sometimes contradict, one another and how these dynamics have driven the discipline through the political landscape of the twentieth century to where we are now so that we can, in the last, pause to envisage where we can and should go next.

Anthropology and the Visual 1

15 credits

This module provides a critical introduction to the many ways anthropologists engage with the visual, from their use of visual methodologies and analysis of representations, to their ethnographic study of everyday visual forms. Focusing on a wide range of visual media, from photography, museum exhibitions and popular representations on TV, to dress, body art, architecture and other everyday visual and material forms, the module raises issues about the significance of visibility, the politics of representation, the social life of visual and material forms and the relationship between seeing and other senses.

Advanced Visual Practice

30 credits

Adnvanced Visual Practice will build on technical skills introduced in the first year of the programme and will ask you to investigate how theory relates to your practice. You will explore the relationship between theory and practice in image use in Anthropological research and publication. You will also have hands on training in a number of professional level software packages, as well as high level visual and audio equipment (cameras, recorders, microphones).

Anthropology at Work

15 credits

The aim of the module is to explore some of the different ways that anthropologists use theory in designing and doing research and to create and extend theoretical arguments in and through ethnography. In doing so we seek also to further foreground the possibility for both ‘other’ anthropologies and anthropologies ‘otherwise’.

Ethnography of a Selected Region II

15 credits

This module explores the ethnography of a specific region, which may change from year to year. Through detailed reading of ethnography, as well as films and other relevant media, major themes of anthropology such as identity, community, local and global politics, inequality and processes of social and economic change are explored.

Anthropology of Religion

15 credits (UG) or 30 credits (PG)

This module introduces the fascinating domain of the anthropology of religion: a vast and wide-ranging subject. It introduces some of the many ways anthropologists have approached religious phenomena and highlights what is unique about anthropology’s contribution to the understanding of religion. It raises questions concerning what counts as ‘religious’ and includes within the remit of the module consideration of a variety of non-human agents (gods, God, spirits, witches) and religious practices (meditation, worship, performances).

15 credits (UG) or 30 credits (PG)

Year 3 (credit level 6)

This level is made up of 120 credits.

You take an Individual Studies with Practice module, worth 30 credits. This module is a research project of your own choosing and design, the topic to be agreed with the member of the department who acts as supervisor.

Anthropology of Art I

15 credits (UG) or 30 credits (PG)

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Modern Anthropology has had an uneasy relation with art and with objects and images in general. The reaction against the museum anthropology of the 19th century led to a certain iconoclasm in the discipline. Yet a hundred years later, the interest of anthropologists on art, and conversely, of artists in Anthropology, is blooming. But this is not so contradictory: in fact modern anthropology and modern art are very close from their origin, in their critical reflection on the relation of images, objects and persons. In this module, we will discuss first the questions that the anthropological tradition has opened up on the relation of things, images and persons. Is the value of objects a human construction? Do objects have agency? Are images, representations? What are the arguments for idolatry and iconoclasm? All these questions are necessary preludes to understand the anthropological approach to art in the modern world. They will enable us to ask what characterises 'art' as a form of social value in our society, as well as how objects and images from other societies are valued as 'art'.

Anthropology of Art II

15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module is designed to offer students the opportunity to conduct a short piece of research in the field broadly defined as the Anthropology of Art. Picking up on theoretical issues introduced in Anthropology of Art I, you will be expected to select your own topic for fieldwork. You may wish to analyse the practice of a particular artist (especially one whose work relates to ethnography in some way), concentrate on aspects of art institutions in London (techniques of display, audiences, exhibitions), or on lives of art objects (their production, consumption, circulation, interpretation). Key issues include: aesthetics and the culture industry: the role of the avant-garde: Frankfurt School critical theory: popular art, resistance and accommodation: the rise of film criticism: museums and collecting.

Anthropology of Development

15 credits

This core module will enable you to explore the theoretical concepts underpinning development, the history of development and its institutions – from NGOs to the World Bank and IMF, while considering diverse case studies from around the world. You will also explore the historical role of anthropology’s involvement in development, as official mediators between ‘the West and the rest’ through imperial conquest, colonial administration and a post-war development industry.

As a central component of the module you will critically analyse current trends that have emerged to dominate the field of global political and economic interventions and/or policies – ‘participation and empowerment’, ‘gender awareness’, ’sustainable development’, ‘community development’, ‘NGOs’, and ‘environmental conservation’.

Anthropology of Development

15 credits

This core module will enable you to explore the theoretical concepts underpinning development, the history of development and its institutions – from NGOs to the World Bank and IMF, while considering diverse case studies from around the world. You will also explore the historical role of anthropology’s involvement in development, as official mediators between ‘the West and the rest’ through imperial conquest, colonial administration and a post-war development industry.

As a central component of the module you will critically analyse current trends that have emerged to dominate the field of global political and economic interventions and/or policies – ‘participation and empowerment’, ‘gender awareness’, ’sustainable development’, ‘community development’, ‘NGOs’, and ‘environmental conservation’.

Anthropology and the Environment

15 credits

The module examines anthropological understandings of human-environment relations and their bearing on public discourses of environmentalism. It deals with: different ways of encountering biophysical surroundings across societies; European traditions of environmental thought and their impacts; management practices, colonialism, and cultural elaboration of the idea of nature; environmental social movements, identity politics and social justice in environmentalism.

Anthropology and Gender Theory

15 credits (UG) or 30 credits (PG)

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module explores the inter-relationship of gender, sexuality and the body both within western cultures and western social theory, and in a range of other cultural and historical contexts. Emphasising the ways in which the body and gender have been produced/imagined differently in diverse times and places, it focuses on both classical and current anthropological topics including:

Anthropology of Violence

15 credits

This module examines a variety of anthropological approaches to the study of violence, ranging from evolutionary explanations for male aggression to studies of changing American attitudes toward terrorism in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. It looks critically at the theoretical, methodological and ethical questions raised in studies of violence through ethnographic case studies from around the world.

The module considers attempts to define violence as a concept in the social sciences and explores the possible causes, meanings, and uses of violent practices from a variety of different cultural contexts and perspectives. It gives particular attention to the political and economic conditions that promote war and other violent behaviour as well as specific cultural expressions within violent practices.

We will also discuss ethnographic descriptions of “peaceful societies” and examine the ways in which peace is made in the aftermath of conflict. In addition to the required and additional readings, the module will also include a number of films that coincide with weekly topics.

Anthropology and the Visual II

30 credits

This module will explore the role of visual representation in anthropology in terms of both the history of its use within the discipline, and also the potential it holds for new ways of working. We will look at work in a wide range of media – photography, film/video, performance – and the ways in which they might be used in an anthropological context, and this will involve looking at work from outside anthropology such as photojournalism and contemporary art, as well as the work of visual anthropologists. The intention of the module it to provide a strong theoretical background for those students going to take the Anthropology and the Visual Production Course in the spring term, and to give students a challenging and creative view of the potentials of visual material within anthropology.

The Anthropology of Rights

15 credits

This module encourages you to engage critically with the rights discourses that underpin development agendas in the contemporary world. You will consider the historical evolution of rights discourses, the institutions that have been established to uphold rights, the language of Human Rights used in international law, as well as the concept of rights as understood by development organisations, governments and multilaterals (such as the UN).

You will also analyse the cross-cutting – and often competing – claims made in the name of, for example, gender and child rights, indigenous rights, intellectual property rights, animal and environmental rights, customary law and bioethics.

The module provides an opportunity to explore the concept and discourses of rights in relation to numerous contemporary social issues (such as natural disasters, constitutional reform, war crimes tribunals, environmental disputes and gender politics), and consider the purchase of the rights concept (and its limitations) within development discourses and practices, as well as in relation to patterns of governance and social justice.

Anthropology of Human Animal Relations

15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Animals are famously good to think with and feature in some of the most controversial thought experiments in anthropology. This course introduces a pantheon of anthropological animals, from Bororo parrots and Lele pangolin to Derrida’s cat and Haraway’s dogs. What does it mean if people can become animals and vice versa? How do we turn animal into edible? Can dogs be heroes?

We also look at the political economy of animal production, the largest industry in the world. The consumption of animals has recently entered an unprecedented phase of extreme exploitation epitomised by the factory farms of Euroamerica. At the same time, ‘wild’ animals have been commodified in zoos and rare species preserved in parks that exclude human inhabitants. How are we to understand these apparently contradictory impulses? Why are cows food and pandas poster children for the Worldwide Fund for Nature? As we adapt to new forms of biotechnology what is at stake in our exchanges with animals, of genes, organs, diseases and labour? The module uses a wide range of resources including film, ethnography and fiction to explore these and other questions.

Health, Medicine and Social Power

15 credits

An introduction to key areas of medical anthropology, ranging from ideas about healing to social inequality and the ‘new biology’. The module addresses issues of biomedicine in the UK alongside alternative therapies and explanations of health/illness in different parts of the world, and approaches to the political economy. Specific sessions include the application of medical anthropology, ‘new’ diseases and technologies.

Anthropological Approaches to History

15 credits (UG) or 30 credits (PG)

There are long held tensions between the disciplines of anthropology and history, although they share some common epistemological concerns.

Increasingly, anthropologists have incorporated historical accounts towards expanding ethnographic possibilities, and to explore theoretical questions of continuity, social change and periodisation, and to examine colonialism as a set of historical conditions. As part of a historicised practice, anthropologists have challenged assumptions about relationship between myth and history, and explored complex temporalities.

In turn, historians have borrowed from anthropological methodologies to underpin radical ideas about microhistories, oral history practices, which have also contributed towards the anthropological project. More recently, both historians and anthropologists have turned to memory as a way of accessing the past through practice, policy and the emotions.

This course sets up these questions through three interconnected threads: the history of anthropology, historical anthropology, and anthropologies of history.

We examine the different kinds of evidence that may be used to understand the past, and how the past is made sense of in the present, through archives, images and material culture. Together this provides us with a model for approaching the past anthropologically, in order to gain ethnographic understandings of the dynamic processes of historicity in everyday contexts, where the past can be deployed, imagined and evidenced.

Ideology and the Secular

15 credits

Is Friedrich Nietzsche’s clarion call, ‘God is Dead’, still relevant in an increasingly reflexive cosmopolitan and pluralistic world? Starting with a critique of secularism as a self-evident category, this module seeks out ethnography that enriches our critical understandings of the misplaced distinction made between religious and secular domains.

In tracing the historical formation of the ‘secular’ - as a broad ideology with deep impact on the effects of the state on its subjects’ bodily dispositions, consciousness and desires - we approach anthropological questions of individual and social transformation through examining ethics, morality and the law in a variety of ‘secular’ contexts.

These contexts include, but are not limited to:

Anthropological considerations of the ideological premises of mass political movements such as Nazism and Bolshevism;

The everyday Kemalist state in Turkey

The infrastructural power of fiscal authoritarianism

The family resemblances between multiculturalism, Indirect Rule, and apartheid

The very idea of the human/Humanism in prescriptive social engineering organised through the state apparatus and executed in the name of freedom and equality

Indian and Peasant Politics in Amazonia

15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module looks at Amazonian societies from pre-history to the present – indigenous, peasant, colonial, developmentalist – and includes discussion of modern social movements (Landless Peoples Movement) as well as classic themes of Levi-Strauss's 'world on the wane', human ecology and extractivist economies.

Myth and Ritual

15 credits

There was a time when myth and ritual were seen as products of the childhood of humankind, before Science came along and disenchanted everything, a time when people languished (or gloried, depending on one’s point of view) in a kind of poetic consciousness. Nowadays, anthropologists tend to assume myth and ritual are aspects of all human societies, our own included; what they can’t agree on however is why. What is it that myth and ritual actually do? Are they ways of resolving existential dilemmas? Or reflecting on the fact they can’t be resolved? Are they ways of establishing unquestionable authority? Forms of artistic self-expression? Media for political action? Or some combination of these?

This module will explore some of these questions, by way of (hopefully colourful and interesting) concrete case studies.

Urban Anthropology

15 credits

As we enter the third millennium, the percentage of urban dwellers exceeds 50% of the world’s population. The sub-field of urban anthropology was born as ethnographers followed rural migrants to cities; but at the beginning of the 20th century, the emergence of anthropology as a professional discipline was intertwined with a fascination with the urban locus across a wide range of arts and social sciences.

Through historical and ethnographic perspectives this module considers the changing use and valorisation of different urban spaces at different times; how cities are represented; ideas of order and disorder, of public and domestic places, of control and resistance through carnival, informal economies and kinship networks. The module covers both third-world and Euro-American cities, and supplements theoretical discourses and ethnographies with films and novels.

Each topic is examined through one or two key studies, drawn from different regions of the world (eg Amazonia, West Africa, Indonesia) and relating to different resources (eg forests, soil, water, oil).

Throughout the module, we will also discuss the bearings of the anthropological ideas examined on public discourses of environmentalism and on conservation policy.

Psychological Perspectives in Anthropology

15 credits

The link between anthropology and psychology has always been tantalizing. On the one hand, any boundary between the two disciplines seems fuzzy and arbitrary. On the other hand, at latest since Durkheim’s notion of ‘homo duplex’, the two perspectives have seemed irreconcilable.

This course aims at exploring some of the connections between anthropology and psychology. Anthropology, by placing social constructionism as a key and entrenched conceptual footing, has tended to draw on psychology only in certain regards. Equally, though there have been works in cross-cultural psychology, the discipline as a whole, given its predominantly experimental bias, has frequently distanced itself from anthropology.

The course is both historical and thematic, and discusses in relation to a number of key themes how psychological dimensions have been brought into anthropological discussions of society and culture.

Borders and Migration

15 credits (UG) 30 credits (PG)

This module will consider the border politics involved in the making of 'transnational', diasporic', and 'local' communities. We will theorize the border as a material, political, cultural and linguistic boundary that is increasingly defining social life as well as engage with the experiences of those who cross borders. We will ask: How are borders constructed and contested? How do migrants experience borders? How is the discourse of citizenship destabilized when movement and borders become central heuristics by which to understand belonging and membership? Throughout the 5 week module we will read academic texts as well as engage with films and literature that focus on migrant lives and border crossings to develop a theoretical and practical knowledge of border politics in relationship to migratory flows.

Learning from Social Movements

15 credits (UG) or 30 credits (PG)

This module revolves around contemporary debates in the anthropology of social movements. It considers the contribution of ethnographic approaches to activism and protest for thinking about politics, collective action and social change.

Examples of topics explored include:

the anti-globalisation movement

#occupy

the anti-corruption movement in India

the anti-foreclosure movement in Spain (PAH)

the Landless Workers' Movement

right-wing extremism

feminist reproductive health activists

independent-living activism

queer movements

the Indigenous Environmental Network

Rather than 'explaining away' these movements, this module is based on learning from them, for instance, devising ways of conceptualising their practice, methods and transformative power. The module will also consider, as a transversal issue, the question of 'engaged' or 'militant' research and, more broadly, the relationship between the production of academic and activist knowledges.

Digital Anthropology Level 6

15 credits

This module offers an introduction to theoretical debates and methods of digital anthropology. It combines an introduction to the debates that have shaped the field with practical sessions designed to familiarize learners with digital methodologies for anthropological research. As digital technologies transform contemporary experiences of subjectivity, embodiment, sociality and everyday life, the module uses anthropological tools and methods to think through digital technologies in a range of ethnographic contexts. Topics covered will reimagine the object of anthropology through digital ethnography, and explore how the purchase of digital futures and imaginaries remake anthropologists’ conceptual toolkits.

The module will combine an enquiry into the materialities and politics of digital infrastructures, devices and social media platforms with practical learning using digital methods to produce anthropological analysis.

Practical sessions will develop independent research skills including research design and ethics, working with digital video, techniques of online data collection and digital qualitative and ethnographic analysis.

Staff/Student Research Project

15 credits

This is a hands-on research module aimed at providing students with grounded, meaningful research experience. This will take the form of participation in research led by staff with the aim of contributing to real, concrete outputs with public and/or academic audiences. The preparation for research will take the form of two day-long workshops in summer term, the research itself will take place over the summer, with a third writing up/dissemination workshop in the Autumn term of the following academic year. As with the Placement module, this will be a Level 6 module which takes place in the summer at the end of the 2nd year, with assessment submitted in the Autumn term of the 3rd year.

While specific research skills will vary depending upon the research project, they are envisaged to include fieldwork skills (EG - interviewing; participant observation; field notes; audio & video data gathering), research ethics training, software use (EG - NVivo; website design packages such as Wordpress; mapping software; film editing) along with dissemination related skills such as blogging or collaborative writing up of research for other forms of publication.

The aim of this course is to provide concrete skills and outputs that can be straightforwardly added to the CV's of students while also allowing them to participate in meaningful research. Depending upon the specificities of the research project - students will also be encouraged, where possible, to contribute towards the research design.

15 credits

Teaching style

This programme is mainly taught through scheduled learning - a mixture of lectures, seminars and workshops. You’ll also be expected to undertake a significant amount of independent study. This includes carrying out required and additional reading, preparing topics for discussion, and producing essays or project work.

The following information gives an indication of the typical proportions of learning and teaching for each year of this programme*:

Year 1 - 16% scheduled learning, 84% independent learning

Year 2 - 14% scheduled learning, 86% independent learning

Year 3 - 12% scheduled learning, 88% independent learning

How you’ll be assessed

You’ll be assessed by a variety of methods, depending on your module choices. These include coursework, examinations, group work and projects.

The following information gives an indication of how you can typically expect to be assessed on each year of this programme*:

Year 1 - 35% coursework, 37% written exam, 28% practical

Year 2 - 69% coursework, 12% written exam, 19% practical

Year 3 - 85% coursework, 15% practical

*Please note that these are averages are based on enrolments for 2017/18. Each student’s time in teaching, learning and assessment activities will differ based on individual module choices. Find out more about how this information is calculated.

Credits and levels of learning

An undergraduate honours degree is made up of 360 credits – 120 at Level 4, 120 at Level 5 and 120 at Level 6. If you are a full-time student, you will usually take Level 4 modules in the first year, Level 5 in the second, and Level 6 modules in your final year. A standard module is worth 30 credits. Some programmes also contain 15-credit half modules or can be made up of higher-value parts, such as a dissertation or a Major Project.

Additional costs

In addition to your tuition fees, you'll be responsible for any additional costs associated with your course, such buying stationery and paying for photocopying. You can find out more about what you need to budget for on our study costs page.

There may also be specific additional costs associated with your programme. This can include things like paying for field trips or specialist materials for your assignments. Please check the programme specification for more information.

These skills provide a good foundation for a number of career paths. You can find out more about the careers this course prepares you for on our Anthropology careers pages.

Careers

Our students have been successful in a range of areas, from postgraduate research and teaching in higher education, to film making and other media careers, journalism, and museum curating, to applied or advocacy work for NGOs and development agencies.

Our particular emphasis on public anthropology encourages our students to explore options in a range of practice-based and public sector career paths.

What our students say

"Something that’s been particularly significant to me is the friends that I’ve made on my course."

"I read about the Anthropology and Visual Practice course and I thought ‘this sounds really interesting’. I didn’t want to do a course that focused completely on photography, so this sounded like a great mix of practice and theory.

I’ve always been interested in studying people and culture, but I’ve never done it in depth. At Goldsmiths you cover so much material and so many different places as well. I’ve come to learn, from studying anthropology, that you have to forget your biases and your own ethnocentric opinions when you’re looking at other cultures because in no way is it the same experience to yours. I think that would be very helpful if everyone could have a deeper cultural understanding and knowledge.

Something that’s been particularly significant to me is the friends that I’ve made on my course. There’s such a diverse group of people at here, which has been really really nice."

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